ABSTRACT
Like others among the vast throng of those disillusioned by the unprecedented carnage of the Great War of 1914-1918, Aldous Huxley experienced a twofold response—a recoiling in disgust, followed eventually by a resurgence of hope. Huxley's use of the writing of novel-length fiction in his search for a defensible moral base for society, as well as for individuals, began of course long before the publication of his best-known work. In addition to his sarcastic allusions to the consequences of contact with Europeans, Huxley takes aim at targets familiar to his readers: the modern idea of progress, the lust for power, the narrowness of modern science, narcissism, plutocrats and commissars – and more. Huxley's Pala indicates that the skeptic-become-mystic has advanced to the notion that, while conversions to the path to the Clear Light remain individual, education and training can lead a whole collective toward the Right Way.
